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moneysense.ca, 1/11/07
This and That
Current issue:
- Rob Carrick looks for consensus on how much you need for a comfortable retirement and finds that there isn’t any.
- A recent report in The Globe and Mail noted that more and more people are becoming interested in DIY investing.
- Bankrate.com surveyed Americans and found that almost half admit that investing in confusing and less than a third claim to know what they pay in fees.
- A report in The Toronto Star points out the hurdles you are likely to face in buying a car across the border.
- Jonathan Chevreau notes that despite the tax cuts unveiled this week Canadians are still overtaxed.
Blog Roundup:
- Canadian Financial DIY finds out how wealthy Canadians are compared to other nations.
- Million Dollar Journey wrote two posts (Part 1, Part 2) on buying second mortgages.
moneysense.ca, 1/11/07
Thanks for the mention CC!
Yes, indeed, it is nice to be noticed by the pre-eminent Canadian finance blog!
I was enjoying lunch with a few of my co-workers yesterday and one of the stats released by the study you mention came up on one of the screen tvs. It stated that 83% of respondents claimed they had no idea how much they were paying in management fees in their 401ks. Two of my co-workers agreed that they were in that catagory and asked me how they could find out. One of the them didn’t even have a clue what he held in his 401k, yet contributes 5% of his salary + 2.5% match to it each pay period (the company match automatically goes into a MM account).
Our 401k plan has a few good funds (out of 12 or so) and 1/2 of our 401k is available to be self-directed through an online brokerage account.
Recently, employees have been given the option to pay an extra 1% (I believe) to have their 401k managed by “professionals”. When I asked what funds they were put in, most everyone said a large %age of their account had been moved in the S&P500 index fund (0.18% MER). So now they’re paying 1.18% for an index fund!
telly: I am not surprised at all. Some very smart people I know don’t have a clue about finances. It’s frightening that these days we are mostly on our own and financial knowledge of the general public is woefully inadequate.
Hey CC. Do you know of any Canadian mutual funds with a low MER and holds mostly Euro denominated bonds? I think it’s finally time to me to make a bet against the Canadian dollar. But most of the funds I’ve seen so far have MERs in the 2% range. Yuk.
Phil: Nope. I’m unaware of any Euro denominated bond mutual funds. Can’t you buy these maple bonds directly through a discount broker? Wonder if any of our readers have experience with them.